


as the summer ends

by unrivaled_tapestry



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Background Relationships, Caretaking, Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Eating Disorders, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mild Blood, Nausea, Sad Ending, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26941084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrivaled_tapestry/pseuds/unrivaled_tapestry
Summary: Five winters have passed since the war. Hubert will not live to see the sixth. Ferdinand just has to keep from breaking apart for a little while longer.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 10
Kudos: 92





	as the summer ends

**Author's Note:**

> Woah! Did not expect to enter a fugue state and write 3k of Hubert deathfic in under 24 hours, but it's been a little bit of a stressful week and here we are.
> 
> A couple clarifying warnings:  
> \- While Hubert does not die on-screen, it is understood that he will and the fic is very much about that (and death/loss is very much the theme)  
> \- There is a mention of disordered eating  
> \- Mention of various fluids like blood and vomit  
> \- Ferdinand is in a caretaker role, and it's implied he has let some of his own self care slide as a result.  
> \- I did not have a specific illness in mind, but the symptoms Hubert shows are very reminiscent of cancer/leukemia.
> 
> Implied Background Relationships (none of these are explicit but they are hinted at):  
> \- Edelgard/Bernadetta  
> \- F!Byleth/Jeritza  
> \- Caspar/Linhardt  
> \- Petra/Dorothea  
> \- Claude/Lorenz
> 
> I tried to keep as much off screen as possible, and it was my goal to focus on the emotions and the fact that Hubert and Ferdinand still love each other, but if any of these themes will be upsetting to you please make the decision that is best for you.
> 
> This was really cathartic to write. My very first fic was about Hubert and Edelgard mourning their partners, so it feels neat to circle back now and see how much my writing and themes have changed.
> 
> I got the idea for this fic when I saw [this beautiful fanart](https://twitter.com/ltoioiotl/status/1314716159250366465?s=20) that you should all go look at.
> 
> Thank you to Nuanta for beta-ing this at like, lightspeed this morning <3 <3 <3 <3

_“Has the Minister of the Imperial Household retreated to his chambers?”_

_“Yes. It will likely be the last time. The Prime Minister is with him.”_

Five winters had passed since the war, and a sixth was on its way.

In Enbarr, the end of summer always brought with it a period of drought and high, stuffy heat made all the stuffier when it cooked the interior of the Imperial Palace. Though servants aimed to keep Hubert’s room as clean as they could in between sessions with the healers, he had dismissed them some time ago. Hubert had always cultivated an air of fright necessary for his work, and Ferdinand knew that he loathed the pitying sideways glances maids gave him as they chased dust out the windows.

The windows were closed now, dark curtains cast over the panes and sacrificing fresh air to keep the room as cool as possible. This made it dark, trapped them both in there with the sick. The pitcher of water Ferdinand brought in earlier had warmed, and small insects drawn by the smell of fresh cut apples on the nightstand had gotten stuck, drowning in the thick water droplets rolling down the glass. Every time Ferdinand went to pour more, he had to wipe his hands and fight the urge to lose his stomach as his hours in the sweet, heavy air only grew.

“Here,” Ferdinand said, holding out a slice of apple with a paring knife. “You should eat something.”

“Should I?” Hubert looked at it skeptically.

“They’re quite good this season. This morning especially,” Ferdinand said encouragingly. When Hubert still did not reach up to take it, Ferdinand added, “For me?”

But it was unassuming enough. Hubert took the slice between two fingers like a cigarette. When he brought it to his mouth, he lightly mashed his bites.

At different times, he’d admitted to caring less for the feeling of something in his stomach than the sensation of chewing the peel. If he ate only to keep Ferdinand happy on the days when even that was a chore, then so be it.

Ferdinand thought back to the spring, when the sun angled properly into Hubert’s chambers and he’d first been confined to his bed. They’d not yet known the extent of the wickedness, and Ferdinand spent hours laying with his head on Hubert’s stomach as light came in from the side and both of them hoped it would chase away the weakness and the long, low fevers. They’d spoken in soft voices, and Ferdinand talked of what they would do when Hubert was better. Sometimes, he’d fallen asleep with Hubert’s hand on his head, content to dream.

Now he wiped up nosebleeds, kept the doors shut except to let the healers in. He wasn’t the only one—Linhardt had returned to Enbarr to oversee Hubert’s treatment, a last effort from Edelgard when it became clear the illness was serious. Ferdinand wondered how frank Linhardt had been with Hubert. He’d learned some tact in life, couched the truth with some sweetness for Ferdinand, but he had to have been honest when Hubert asked how long he’d live.

Ferdinand ran his sleeve over his sweating forehead. It wasn’t possible for him to catch Hubert’s sickness, but still the heat made him feel feverish, the apples made him nauseous, and blood was the least of the scents that stuck in his nose when he left.

“How was your work?” Hubert asked after he finished his slice, a firm denial of further food.

“It was fine,” Ferdinand said.

Hubert sucked in a deep breath. “I heard Bergliez suggested you step down.”

Ferdinand froze as his knife bit into the other half of the apple. “An old blowhard, as you know. He had utterly no reason to suggest that. And Edelgard refuted him, so there is no harm.”

“Unsigned papers are no reason?” Hubert asked, resurrecting a hint of old harshness when he did. “What about missed meetings? Absence from court? Not being there to greet the Almyran diplomatic envoy?”

Ferdinand shook his head. “This is temporary. My father spent half his time at the tracks.”

“You _have_ been missing your work.” Hubert scowled at him in a flash of anger, and Ferdinand pretended not to see it. “This is beyond belief. Our peace remains delicate and you’re playing _nursemaid_.”

Ferdinand scraped off a bit of peel and shoved some apple into his own mouth. It was the only thing Hubert would eat anymore, these last two weeks, and Ferdinand now found he couldn't even stand the smell of it in tea.

Hubert seemed to stop, but when Ferdinand did not answer, he considered further criticisms. “It’s selfish, is what it is. Her Majesty requires you in your role now more than ever. This disease cannot ruin both of us. When I am gone—”

“You will not have much of an opinion, will you?” Ferdinand knew he shouldn’t have said it, the way Hubert went completely still, like he’d have been less surprised if Ferdinand took a needle and lanced an infected wound on his arm without warning.

Hubert watched him, mouth slightly open, throat fluttering as if he was trying to squeeze an apology out of it.

“Please do not fight me today.” Ferdinand was shocked at the desperate edge that crept in, rawly, at the core of his voice, quiet as it was. He squeezed his eyes shut, laid the knife down in the bowl by the bed, by the pitcher and its collection of dead fruit flies. He’d cried so much, the shock and the exhaustion and the doom kept pushing him past it, but the thought of them _arguing_ right then made his eyes sting. “I do not wish to fight.”

They sat together in the heady silence of the room, Ferdinand trying to pretend his shoulder bones didn’t want to tremble him out of his flesh. It wasn’t supposed to be like that—

“Ferdinand?”

“ _What_?”

“Could you please open the window?” The harshness was gone from Hubert’s voice, replaced by quiet and exhaustion and calm.

“It is too warm outside.” 

“And I’m served so well by being cooked alive with apples and vomit?” Hubert did not quite roll his eyes, but they did seem to fall back into his head as his head sank further into the pillow.

Ferdinand recognized something that wasn’t so much an apology as a chance to move on, and he reached for it. Perhaps some air would be good for them both. Rising to his feet, he went over to the blackout curtains.

He struggled with them for a long, embarrassing minute as he tried to find where they were attached to the normal curtains. When he finally got them down, they fell in a heap on the floor, and light flooded into the darkened room. The sun did not perfectly angle in, which cut down on some of the heat. As Ferdinand unlatched the window, a wash of balmy air came in through the open window, and with it came relief.

Though they were on the other side of the palace from the gardens, a few planters, trees, and little-used walkways did run past his quarters. The sun flashed against a clumsy paint smattering of pansies, and Ferdinand had to wave away a yellowjacket. Marianne said they got hungry and desperate before fall, so they could bring as much sugar back to the hive as possible.

“I think it is actually cooler outside now,” he said, as a way of moving forward himself.

With the room brightened, Ferdinand wandered back to Hubert’s bedside. At least he felt less ill himself than he had a minute earlier. Hubert’s eyes were closed, the smallest smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

“That’s better.” When he spoke, it was little more than a pleased sigh. Ferdinand’s heart lifted at that. When someone’s friends had already come to say goodbye, any hint of cheer was a relief.

In the time since the war, most of the Black Eagle Strike Force had gone their separate ways. Byleth’s recruits were spread from Almyra to Gautier, and not everyone had been able to make the trip when news of Hubert’s ill health reached them. Ferdinand had received lengthy letters from Lorenz—treatises on what spring was like over Fodlan’s Throat, queries as to his own health, condolences, the obligatory wish that he could be in Enbarr. Dorothea and Petra made the journey back earlier in the summer, and Ferdinand almost envied them for only being present to see Hubert doing relatively well. Caspar and Linhardt temporarily paused their travels in order for Linhardt to inspect Hubert, and after relaying how dire the situation was he had the decency to stay around. How much of that was Linhardt and how much of it was Caspar was unclear to Ferdinand, but he was grateful all the same. Edelgard and Bernadetta had been there from the beginning. They would see it through to the end along with Ferdinand.

Almost uncannily, Byleth and Jeritza arrived back in Enbarr. They made regular if discomforting return trips for Edelgard’s sake, but at the war’s end Byleth had asked for two things—solitude, and Jeritza. Both requests were granted.

Byleth had not spent much time alone with Hubert, but no one was surprised. Lengthy goodbyes had never been her way.

“ _What did the professor say to you?_ ” Ferdinand had asked.

“ _Something frustratingly odd, as usual_ ,” Hubert said. “ _She’s grown rather spiritually curious, for a woman who killed a saint._ ”

Ferdinand wondered if he was the only one left who hadn’t said it.

As he wandered back, he eyed the pitcher of water with its weak ice chips, it’s sides bleeding onto the nightstand to leave a soppy ring of water on the wood. Ferdinand knew it was being ruined, but that was an easy enough thing to replace. However, when he glanced at the surface, he saw waterlogged gnats. How long had it been there? Had he just brought fresh ice last time?

“I am going to get fresh water.” He was announcing it to himself as much as Hubert, even as he fought another roil to his stomach and the idea of walking all the way to the kitchen for ice filled him with a kind of dread, because what if Hubert needed him? He could have called a maid to come sit there while he was gone, but Hubert would have a fit about it for a day if he did. And Hubert insisted Ferdinand retrieve their food and water himself.

Hubert made a noncommittal noise, and Ferdinand figured he may as well get it over with. Grabbing the pitcher, he dumped it out the window and hesitantly left Hubert’s quarters. He would be back quickly.

He resented the way his heart lifted as he stepped onto the sunlit hallways of the Imperial Palace. He’d never been a stranger to the smells of a sickroom—both he and Hubert had sat at each other's bedsides during the war, or taken enough shifts helping the healers to know what it was like. Now, it was the norm, and the brightness, the cleanliness, the _life_ outside seemed foreign.

He made the trip quickly, replacing the pitcher and exchanging a few polite greetings with the staff. There was a time he would have wanted to talk to them, ask them about their days and tell them, unprompted, about his. Like a child.

As it was, he was just grateful no one asked why the Prime Minister was running to the kitchen like a servant.

The trek back to Hubert’s rooms seemed to take forever with the fresh pitcher, even as Ferdinand spilled a little, his long steps sloshing water onto the stone floors.

He only relaxed as he stepped back into Hubert’s room, which felt a little airier now at least. The breeze coming in from outside was weak, but it had washed away some of the death. At least he felt a little better from his walk.

“I have a pitcher. With new ice.” As Ferdinand stepped into the room, he asked, “Would you like me to pour you a glass?”

He looked over to the bed with a smile and his heart clenched.

Hubert’s eyes were closed and his head had fallen at a slight angle, mouth parted, and Ferdinand’s breath halted. He heard a few things. Birdsong. Crackling ice. _No_ , no not yet. It wasn’t time. Ferdinand wasn’t ready—

He opened his mouth to whisper Hubert’s name, and only then did he notice the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Ferdinand let out his breath. _Sleeping_. Hubert was sleeping.

Ferdinand almost laughed, hiding his embarrassment by clutching the pitcher a little more tightly. Already, water was beading up on the sides.

Lazily, Hubert opened his eyes into sleepy slits and turned his attention to Ferdinand. “You’re back? That was fast.”

Replacing the pitcher, Ferdinand sat back down next to Hubert. The beautiful summer day seemed that much dimmer and more grim as he found Hubert’s clammy hand and pried it from the bedsheet. He pressed the back of it into his forehead as his fingertips gently massaged Hubert’s palm, and Hubert let it happen, lifted his elbow as much as he could as if to help hide how tightly Ferdinand was holding him. With the bones of Hubert’s knuckles against his skull, Ferdinand felt every tremor.

When Hubert spoke next, his voice was so quiet that Ferdinand almost missed it. “Sometimes I feel as though my husk is selfishly lingering only to have another day with you.”

“We were _supposed_ to have more time,” he whispered into Hubert’s wrist.

“The professor told me we have all the time in the world,” Hubert responded, voice raspy, tired. It wouldn’t be today, Ferdinand knew. It wouldn’t be long, either. “Whatever that means.”

“You were right. That is an odd thing to say.” With a sniff, Ferdinand pressed his lips to the creaking, swollen base of Hubert’s palm. He wished it could be true. “I will be here for what we have left.”

“I almost wish you wouldn’t,” Hubert admitted. “I never meant to...”

“What?” Ferdinand sank further down into the bed. “See me come to adore you? Then you should not have gotten me the tea, you lurking fool.”

There was no trace of hostility in his voice. Tired love was still love. If the goal was anything else, Hubert should not have been so grimly charming during their courtship, or balanced Ferdinand so well as a person. It felt as though the last ten years had belonged to them and them alone—to the point where Ferdinand no longer even regretted the time they most fervently bumped heads.

He still loved this man. He always would. “It is not selfish if I am the one asking you to stay a little longer.”

Or did that make him the selfish one?

Another smile graced Hubert’s chapped lips, and he gently pulled his hand free from Ferdinand’s, instead opting to fix his hand into the length of Feridnand’s hair to card through strands. Despite himself, Ferdinand melted into the touch, into the hint of firmness in the tips of Hubert’s fingers.

“Ferdinand?” Hubert asked. “When did you last wash your hair?”

A wild little laugh escaped Ferdinand. “You know? I honestly cannot recall.”

Surely it had been in the last couple days.

“You should wash it.”

“It is not necessary.”

Hubert’s expression went firmer, sadder. “For me?”

Ferdinand hesitated, his palm going back up to hold Hubert’s hand. He squeezed his eyes shut.

After a moment, “Stop being dramatic. I’m not on my way yet.”

Relenting, Ferdinand rose to his feet. As he did so, he bent low over the bed, let his knee prop up his hip as he pressed a kiss to Hubert’s lips. “I shall hold you to that.”

Ferdinand pried himself away from Hubert’s side to go draw himself a bath. He left the door partly open, just in case his name was called out, but after the heating stones started hissing against the metal of the tub he heard only silence. Quickly, he stripped and sank in, let slightly too-hot water sting his legs and back, let the heat dig into the itching in his face and scalp. It took two rounds of soaping for his hair to feel right. By the time the water started cooling, a low current of guilt arrived to shame him for dallying.

When he walked back out, a hand towel still wringing out his hair, he saw that Hubert’s face had fallen to the side again. This time, with his eyes adjusted to the dark, Ferdinand could see him breathing.

Tossing his towel aside, he padded over to the bed. He laid down until his side was flush with Hubert’s and pressed his clean face onto a pillow he knew he’d been slow to change. There was a time he couldn’t even enter a room without waking Hubert, so keen were his senses. Ferdinand never thought he would miss that rangy paranoia.

So Ferdinand let his forehead fall against Hubert’s cheek so he could hear him lightly snoring, let his arm wrap around Hubert’s collarbone so he could feel him breathing. He considered how lucky they were to have existed together, led the life they had and come to understand one another in.

Outside, the wind rustled the trees. Ferdinand closed his eyes and wondered if he could dream things okay again. That was what faith magic was supposed to be for, right? As he drifted off, Ferdinand felt Hubert stir and clung to him more tightly as a hand trailed up through his drying hair. In response, Ferdinand brushed back Hubert’s bangs so he could see both of his half-lidded eyes.

Ferdinand would have to say goodbye soon, he knew that in his bones, the sick drum under his ribs told him so. It wouldn’t be today.

But Hubert always said his optimism was unmatched. It would be a shame to disappoint him now.


End file.
